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The bank said
in a statement: 'Technical issues have caused considerable disruption to
many of our retail and business customers, as well as customers of
other banks. We have made significant progress in resolving the issues
and are working around the clock to put things right for our customers.

'Under
the circumstances, we felt it would be inappropriate to provide client
hospitality at Wimbledon. Our people are focused on resuming normal
service for our customers as soon as possible.'

Regular fans crowd on 'Murray Mound' to watch the British player in action

The bank declined to divulge how much money it had planned to spend on hospitality.

Sir
Mervyn told MPs today there would need to be a “detailed investigation”
into what went wrong and why it has taken so long to sort the issues
out.

RBS and NatWest have around 15 million accounts between them, but it is still unclear how many were affected by the disruption.

A
spokesman for RBS Group said it may “never know” the exact figure as it
was not possible to tell when everyone is expecting money to be paid
into their account and some people may not have noticed problems.

Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King said that bank bosses should be subject to a 'detailed investigation' over the NatWest affair

Ulster
Bank has estimated that about 100,000 of its customers have been caught
up in the problems, which have meant that customers’ balances have not
been updating properly and their wages have not shown up in their
accounts, although the money is 'in the system'.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) warned today that it could be weeks before customers see all of the issues completely resolved.

The banking group has extended its opening hours this week as staff work “round the clock” to sort out the problems, which began after a software update last Tuesday.

People have had their house moves and holidays disrupted and a defendant in a court case had to spend the weekend in prison because the RBS computer failure prevented his bail money being transferred.

In a hearing with the Treasury Select Committee, Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been in close contact with management at RBS since the problem arose, and over the weekend.

He said the issues were technical and not a reflection of funding issues at the bank, which is 80% state-owned.

He added: 'Once the current difficulties are over, we need the Financial Services Authority to carry out a detailed investigation to find out what went wrong - and importantly why it took so long to recover.'